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The Ecuador's Volcanoes January 19th trip reached the
summit of Cayambe today at 18,977',
RMI Guide Casey Grom said it was a tough climb and the ascent was 8 hours. The team descended safely back to camp and then packed up their gear and loaded vechicles toward their hacienda for the night. They were looking forward to hot showers and a good night's rest.
Congratulations to all the climbers for their great effort today.
On The Map
Sleep came very easy for the team last night, no surprise right? Hot water bottles were not needed now that we have descended into the thick air of the cloud forest. We had a busy morning with many teams at Mweka Camp, so we were up early and had a quick snack before starting a fun gifting celebration to the local staff. I have to mention a superb job, once again by our local outfitter the Dik Dik. They provide such a high level of standards and consistency, it is always a pleasure to work with them. A two and a half hour descent brought us to the entrance gate where we bid farewell to the lovely and very friendly (this time) mountain
Kilimanjaro. We are about to embark on an eating extravaganza after hot showers and sorting of gear to prepare for the Safari adventure ahead in the morning. The only thing that could make this better is if all of our friends and family were here.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
The team arrived to Base Camp early afternoon and in the commotion of celebrating, showers and packing for the mules we forgot to check in. We are heading for
Pampa Las Lenas in a few minutes. The walk will retrace our first two days of the Trek and will culminate with an asado dinner and another beautiful night sleeping under the stars. The team is eager to get back to town and looking forward to lighter backpacks. This dispatch will conclude our expedition. We had amazing weather and a great group of climbers! Thanks for following along.
RMI Guides
Mike King and
JM Gorum
Greetings!
Today was a great day for the first day of our
Alpamayo Expedition: stellar landscape on the acclimatization hike, for a stellar crew, on stellar weather. This third year of Alpamayo Expeditions for RMI looks very promising! We hiked up to 14,400' to our traditional destination of Lake Churup, and we had incredible views of the range, the glacial lake and the mountain of the same name. We hiked back to town and had a team lunch before returning to our hotel for some packing and relaxing. We're heading tomorrow to the trailhead. Everyone is doing great and is very excited.
We'll be checking from the trail from now on!
Best,
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos and team
The
Four Day Summit Climb June 15 - 18, 2016 was unable to reach the summit of Mt. Rainier today due to avalanche danger.
RMI Guides Seth Waterfall and Mike Uchal led their teams to Ingraham Flats before making the decision to turn back. All climbers are back at Camp Muir where they will rest and repack before beginning their descent to Paradise later this morning.
Showers, movies, pate, and packing for the upper mountain. Today we are resting and organizing at Plaza de Argentina, the basecamp for
Aconcagua. Everyone is feeling great indicated by full nights of sleep and healthy appetites. The basecamp amenities have surprised us all in excellent food and comfortable accessories. The mules headed back to the barn yesterday leaving us with much heavier loads of food, fuel, and warm layers to heave up this mountain. Everyone agrees that on this beautiful warm sunny day at 14,000 feet the best part is the company. We have a tremendous group of climbers who are all acclimatizing well and ready for a carry of gear tomorrow to Camp 1. Hello to all!
RMI Guide Christina von Mertens
Today was a good but tough day for our team on
Mt. Elbrus. We enjoyed a great night's rest at camp along with a hearty breakfast this morning. After several cups of coffee we geared up and headed up towards 15,000 feet to acclimatize.
As we neared Pastuhkova Rocks the wind kicked in and the once clear, unobstructed view of Elbrus became shrouded in clouds and heavy wind. Our team gritted their teeth and displayed great strength as we reached the rocks.
We are now back down in camp where things are a little calmer and sunnier. Tomorrow we will review some more mountaineering techniques before we take on a summit attempt.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
On The Map
Hello everyone:
Not much to report today, other than everybody slept very soundly last night after some much needed sleep. It was a pretty relaxing day here in
Cheget and we ventured out to have lunch at a local restaurant that has a small trout pond, but we opted to leave the fishing up to the locals. After lunch the team wandered through this very small town and did a little shopping too.
We have just finished dinner and a little ceremony where we handed out certificates, congratulated everyone and said a big thanks to our local outfitter for all of their help.
Tomorrow it's off to beautiful St. Petersburg!
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Hello!
We're in
Namche Bazaar, neurological centre of the Khumbu Region, and capital-of-trading village where Tibetan and Sherpa met with their nomadic goods to exchange.
The journey here is steep, ornamented route that poses some challenges as we start venturing into the thinner air. But we managed it with ease.
Today we had the opportunity to spot, for the first time and among the clouds, the silhouette of the 1st and 4th tallest mountains in the world. We're eager to continue to trek further in and higher up to see more!
That's it for now.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
The team met up around 8 a.m. for a not too early breakfast. Afterwards we split up and set out on the streets of Mendoza, running all of our last minute errands. We visited a couple gear shops, hit the pharmacy, grocery store, all the usual stuff before reconvening for a team lunch at a sidewalk cafe. Nicolas, our liaison from Grajales, was kind enough to deal with all the permit rigmarole that is normally a complete pain. So the pace of the morning wasn't nearly as rushed as in years past.
Our transfer out to
Penitentes showed up at the hotel and we loaded up our gear and hit the road. The drive to Penitentes is absolutely gorgeous, rolling through the vineyards outside of the city, up into the foothills, and eventually making our way into the heart of the Andes. Four hours on the road brought us to the Grajales packing facility where we unloaded and spent the rest of the afternoon packing up for the mules and prepping for tomorrow's start up the hill.
Psyched to hit the trail...
RMI Guides Billy Nugent and Katrina Bloemsma and team
Well done guys. It sounded like a tough climb so I hope you are all feeling good about your achievements so far!
Have fun on the rest of the trip! good luck and stay safe.
Posted by: Peter Williamson on 1/26/2016 at 8:22 am
Congratulations Dave, John & the rest of your team. I was thinking about you when I was in PT yesterday. Glad you are having a good trip. Gambatte!
Posted by: Jean on 1/26/2016 at 4:25 am
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